Joby Warrick Boeken

"In a thrilling dramatic narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents. When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented character-driven account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq. Zarqawi began by directing terror attacks from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By falsely identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, U.S. officials inadvertently spurred like-minded radicals to rally to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until American and Jordanian intelligence discovered clues that led to a lethal airstrike on Zarqawi's hideout in 2006. His movement, however, endured. First calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq, then Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, his followers sought refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, and as the U.S. largely stood by, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of an ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate. Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of diplomats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Black Flags is a brilliant and definitive history that reveals the long arc of today's most dangerous extremist threat"-- Provided by publisher

When King Abdullah of Jordan ascended to the throne in 1999, he released political prisoners to ease his transition. Among those freed was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a future terrorist mastermind who would forge an Islamist movement aimed at dominating the Middle East. Zarqawi initially orchestrated hotel bombings and assassinations in Jordan from northern Iraq, but the 2003 American invasion of Iraq propelled him to lead a vast insurgency. The CIA's portrayal of him as a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden inadvertently turned him into a symbol for like-minded radicals, who rallied to his cause as a hero against the "infidel" occupiers. His campaign of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until Jordanian intelligence helped the U.S. eliminate him in a 2006 airstrike. However, his movement survived, evolving from al-Qaeda in Iraq to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), finding refuge in the chaotic regions along the Iraq-Syria border. The outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 allowed ISIS to pursue Zarqawi's vision of a strict Islamic caliphate. Utilizing unique access to CIA and Jordanian sources, the narrative combines gripping operational details with broader historical insights to illuminate the ongoing threat posed by Islamic extremism today.

So when Russia offered to store Syria's chemical weapons, the world leaped at the solution.So begins a race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the middle of Syria's civil war.

In December 2009, a group of the CIAs top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Afghanistan to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian who had infiltrated the upper ranks of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Ladens top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, al-Balawi detonated a thirty-pound bomb, instantly killing seven CIA operatives and giving the agency its worst loss of life in decades